Solo performances at the AF every Saturday – this week featuring Chris O’Connor!

Chris O’Connor regularly performs in Auckland’s improvisation/sound art music scene, collaborates with established Kiwi music pop icons and teaches music at both UNITEC and Auckland University. Chris is a member of Vitamin S, The Spoilers of Utopia, The Phoenix Foundation and Don McGlashan’s band the Seven Sisters. He has performed in theatrical productions for the Auckland Theatre Company, Silo, and Jessie Peach Productions. He has performed with the Auckland Chamber Orchestra, the New Pacific Music Ensemble, WOMAD Festivals in Taranaki and Adelaide, The Wellington International Arts Festival, the Auckland Festival, and as a soloist at the Silver Scrolls. Chris has worked with acclaimed artists such as, Steve Lacy, Marilyn Crispel, Vinnie Golia, Jeffrey Henderson, Sam Hamilton, Jonathan Crayford, David O’Donnell, Richard Nunns, Trinity Roots, Leila Adu, Andrew Keoghan, Golden Horse, Rick Bryant, Tim Finn, to name a few.

“From (Chris O’Connor’s) first album (Syzgy’s 1996 ‘Tongue Grooves’) onward, it’s been non-stop – at least one album a year – combined with constant playing, in a kaleidoscope of different styles and different people. In the past five months alone, Chris has been on tour with SJD; played at AKO7 and WOMAD as a regular member of Don McGlashan’s Seven Sisters; performed as a member of the Vitamin S free improvisation community with the Damo Suzuki Network; played at the Sound Invention Convention; played in the superb production of Janet Roddick and Plan 9’s “Songs of Kurt Weill” also at AKO7; and created a live solo drum soundtrack for an alternative film event at Auckland’s Galatos, where the films were projected onto an orchestral bass drum that he also used as his kick drum (great idea).” – NZ Musician